


The Wisdom to be Wise

by hawkesquad



Series: Heavy the Head [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Inquisitor Anders (Dragon Age), M/M, NaNoWriMo, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2019-01-28 15:22:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12609608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hawkesquad/pseuds/hawkesquad
Summary: “Nugback,” Dorian insisted.“Don’t be pedantic,” Anders called, fighting to be heard over the snuffling of his agitated war nug.“Don’t say horseback if it’s clearly nugback,” came the cheerful reply.Anders just rolled his eyes. “Fine, nugback.As I was saying, there’s no finer view than Ferelden bynugback.”





	1. Fireside

**Author's Note:**

> I'm starting a day late but I'm writing this for NaNo. I did a drabble in 2015 that gained some traction so I figure it's as good a thing as any to write now. Drabble should be posted by the time you read this. Just a heads up that I won't be editing this until after NaNo is over if at all because I don't have much time and I'll have to be doing a lot of writing. If there are glaring mistakes or lore mess ups, I'm sorry, I hope you enjoy it anyway. Will add warnings as they apply.

“Nugback,” Dorian insisted.

“Don’t be pedantic,” Anders called, fighting to be heard over the snuffling of his agitated war nug.

“Don’t say horseback if it’s clearly nugback,” came the cheerful reply.

Anders just rolled his eyes. “Fine, nugback. _As I was saying,_ there’s no finer view than Ferelden by _nugback._ ”

“The mud is so charming from up here, yes. Like piles of rustic chocolate. Or is that nug shit? Hard to tell.” Dorian earned a soft snort from Anders.

“Possibly both.”

The two of them had ridden ahead while Sera and Blackwall trailed behind, each caught up in insisting their own mount was more impressively endowed. Blackwall had at some point told Sera to check and she was currently loosening her saddle in order to drop underneath her nug without having to dismount.

There was only so much Dorian could take in a day.

The sky above was cloudless, the bright afternoon sun warming their chilly hands. Frosty mud and patches of errant grass reached up at them as they passed. He hoped their next mission would take them back to Val Royeaux.

Anders pulled his reins and reached out a hand to halt Dorian and the others. “We’re here.”

He dismounted lithely and walked toward the mouth of what was only nominally a cave. The top looked as though it’d been chopped off, and while it had a mouth, it was really more a series of mountainous archways leading into a glowing clearing. A rift.

“Everyone ready?” the Herald called.

“Oh, hell yeah,” Sera replied, abandoning her quest to flop wrong side up on her nug in favor of jumping off entirely and knocking an arrow, ready to pull the string back at Anders’ order. “Let’s plug ‘em where they need plugging.”

Blackwall had walked up to join them, scraping a bit of what Dorian hoped was mud off his hilt before drawing his sword. “Same plan as the last?”

Dorian couldn’t shake the mental image of Blackwall surrounded by demons while he and Sera sent missiles their way and Anders desperately tried to keep the knight standing with healing spells. “I should _hope_ not. Surely we have a better plan than ransoming you for a quick win.” He looked desperately at Anders.

To his credit, he looked at least a little embarrassed. “Well, to be fair, the last one caught me by surprise. I didn’t expect to ride underneath a rift.” He ran a hand over his face. “All right, new plan. Sera, when we get close, you shoot the first thing you see and try to get it to head your way. I’ll disrupt the rift while you guys distract the demons, then we focus fire on each of them. Got it?”

They nodded in agreement. It wasn’t a much better plan but at least this time Anders seemed to remember he _could_ affect the rift. Dorian prepared a barrier just in case and they moved in.

After the battle—one where Anders had been forced to hid behind a rock in the corner just to keep the despair demon from taking him out and Dorian had been knocked unconscious twice—they finally succeeded.

“Let’s rest here,” Sera said, leaning on Blackwall’s shoulder. All of them looked as haggard as they felt and Anders just agreed weakly. He’d taken the fewest hits by far, but he was exhausted from healing. At one point Dorian thought it looked like he was glowing from the inside out but there was too much going on to tell.

They stopped and passed the water skins around. Sera had a small stash of jerky that she shared only reluctantly in exchange for some of Dorian’s almonds and a pleading look from Anders. Blackwall claimed he didn’t want any which made her throw one at him. After a while they were perked up, if not entirely better. They’d have to head back to camp before long anyway so nobody was too worried. Just a few more quick things and they’d be done for the day.

“Do you see that?” Blackwall stood, eyes catching on a small hole between the rocks. He walked up a rocky incline and disappeared for a moment. When he returned he was carrying a letter. Some poor fool had bled out and wanted his last words delivered to his family at the farms. That much they could do.

By nightfall they’d closed another rift and snuck round back a bandit fortress, earning a fight against a rage demon for their trouble.

“We’ll go in tomorrow so get some sleep,” Anders said through a yawn. In the daylight he just looked tired, but at night there was something gaunt about the way the shadows clung to his face. He looked hungry, almost feral.

Sera took no convincing, nodding and immediately crawling into a tent. Less than a minute later she was snoring softly behind the closed canvas.

“Nature calls,” Blackwall said sleepily and disappeared down the hill.

“Let’s just hope he doesn’t get surprised by a bear while he’s down there,” Dorian said mildly.

“Let’s hope that poor bear doesn’t die from the smell alone,” Anders responded. He sat beside the fire, uninterested in sleeping.

“You should rest too, you know. Unless you prefer being carried into the fortress tomorrow.”

“I think I should be carried everywhere,” Anders looked up at him and grinned. “And fed grapes along the way.”

Dorian just laughed and sat down beside him. “If you manage to commission such a thing, do put in a good word for me. I could use a permanent litter-and-feeding service.”

For a while they sat in amiable silence, unbroken except for the sound of Blackwall trudging back up the hill and disappearing tiredly into his own tent, bearing no obvious signs of claw marks.

Dorian pulled the pouch of almonds from his pocket and shook the last stalwart few into his palm. It was worth it for the jerky but he sorely wished he had more to offer at the moment. He passed them to the Herald.

“No, I’m fine,” Anders replied without looking at them. He’d been staring at the fire for most of the night, only looking around occasionally to take in his surroundings.

“Come on, you have to eat sometime,” Dorian needled. Anders had consumed in total one strip of jerky and half a skin of water. Even when they got back to camp and the scouts had a pot of mint and potato stew going, he’d just wrinkled his nose and set to work writing.

Dorian hadn’t managed to get a good look at the missives but it was clear Anders was trying to get in touch with the rebel mages and just hadn’t managed to get through yet.

Now that it was night and the writing was done, however, he still sat there unable to sleep and uninterested in food. He looked drawn, weary, like if Dorian touched him he might just collapse in a boneless heap.

“Eat the almonds or I’ll start singing. You won’t like me when I’m singing.”

Anders raised an eyebrow and looked over. “You say that like a threat but I imagine you’re quite good at singing.”

That surprised Dorian. It wasn’t a lie. He wasn’t amazing at it but he’d had years of tutoring during his confining yet upper-class life in Tevinter. Even as an adult his family had insisted he stay active in his studies. He wasn’t a half bad dancer either. Still, to have Anders the Distracted of all people point it out was unexpected.

He simply drew his face into the best impression of a stern matron that he could manage in response. “Well in that case, eat them or I _won’t_ sing, and then where will you be?”

Anders just laughed. “Fine, fine.” He put the handful—five or six almonds perhaps—in his mouth at once and chewed quietly. After a while he quietly continued, “Thank you, Dorian. I think I’ll get some sleep after all.” Anders stood and clapped him on the shoulder, offering a pleasant but drowsy smile, and went to sleep.

Dorian sat for a little while longer looking at the fire. When they first met, Anders had expressed interest in Tevinter, fashioning himself the type to thrive there beyond the rule of the Chantry. He saw himself as the political savant, able to easily navigate the darkness that was Tevene high society. Maybe he was right, but Dorian knew Tevinter like the back of his hand and he was beginning to know Anders as well.

The man wasn’t soft by any means and he’d made choices that were so infamous even Dorian had caught wind of them, though the stories had been complicated replications of an even more complicated situation at best.

A man like Anders thinking he could be everything he dreamed in Tevinter wasn’t new. Mages in the south either idealized the way they lived or saw it as the ultimate evil setting them back in their own progress with the Chantry. But idealists rarely survived.

Though Anders may have wished it different, Dorian was quietly grateful the man had grown up elsewhere. At least that idealism was still alive.


	2. The Start

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You lie.” Cassandra Pentaghast looked seven shades of furious. Anders met her gaze even as nervousness coiled in his stomach. He couldn’t deny that it looked bad.
> 
> This would have to happen to the one person in all of Thedas who was infamous for iconoclasm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As the title implies, this is a flashback to the time leading up to life in Haven. There are a few things in this chapter I wish I'd had more time to go over so hopefully once NaNo is over I'll get around to rewriting it and getting to really milk things like Anders talking to Varric and Cullen again. Enjoy.

“You lie.” Cassandra Pentaghast looked seven shades of furious. Anders met her gaze even as nervousness coiled in his stomach. He couldn’t deny that it looked bad.

This would have to happen to the one person in all of Thedas who was infamous for iconoclasm.

“No, I _really_ didn’t do this one.” A weak smile danced across his face and he immediately regretted it. He was certain she considered cutting it clean off.

“Craven waste of—” She drew her sword and he raised his manacled hands—one of which was glowing uncomfortably; another mystery to sort out—the chain the only thing between him and the Seeker’s blade. The woman beside her grabbed her arm, staying it for now. Small mercies.

“We need him, Cassandra.”

Anders peeked around his raised hands to get a look at the scene in front of him. There was a brief standoff between them, Cassandra staring at her red haired companion and said woman looking just as firmly back. Anders hadn’t recognized her at first between the lighting and the tension. Unlike Cassandra, she hadn’t imperiously told him her name before threatening him, either.

Leliana. He’d traveled with her before, fought alongside her and Mahariel what seemed like a lifetime ago. Leliana, his one-time ally. Leliana, possibly his friend.

“The Divine is _gone_ because of him. Surely you can’t think he’s worth this. Even before all of this chaos, there was blood on his hands.” That stung.

“Maybe so, but we can’t say for certain. We need to get him and that mark to the others.”

She didn’t even seem to see him. Leliana had always seemed soft and kind to him, a woman with a crush on his fellow Warden and a set of dangerous but well-intentioned skills she was only ever interested in pointing at the enemy. He wished then that he’d found her alone. She would have understood, he thought. _Someone_ had to.

Cassandra sheathed her sword in disgust and hauled Anders bodily off the floor. He would have made a joke about her liking it rough now that she wasn’t interested in cutting him open anymore, but the idea of getting a black eye _and_ being dragged through snow-covered hell sounded less than worth it.

“Come. We’ll see if you’re useful.”

The door opened and a blinding green light flooded the entryway. Anders stepped into it, shielding his eyes from its glow until he could stand it long enough to look up. When he did, he froze.

Well, shit.

“See that?” Cassandra asked, a severity to her tone that was beginning to infect Anders.

He didn’t even look at her, his eyes affixed to the gnashing green mouth hundreds of feet overhead. It seemed ready to swallow all of Thedas. He wasn’t sure what he felt then. Fear, certainly. To say Justice was uncomfortable with it would have been putting it mildly. The spirit was almost thrashing inside him.

“That is a problem,” he replied simply, hands slack against their cuffs as they hung in front of him. It seemed like looking at the chasm didn’t make the mark hurt any more than usual, but the matching green glow between his hand and the sky made him nervous.

Cassandra stared at him for a long minute. “You…” She didn’t finish. He didn’t ask.

“Take me to it.” A feeling swept over him that he had come to associate with Justice knowing something that he hadn’t before and to which he was now being made privy. He was uncomfortably aware of what this light meant for spirits.

And things that affected spirits rarely meant anything good for mages.

Cassandra said nothing, just glared and silently dragged him past the clustered soldiers. They stared at him with mixed distrust and hatred. Oh well, nothing he’d done had ever been intended for the benefit of the Chantry or their dogs, certainly.

Nevermind that these weren’t truly Templars or even the Divine’s enforcers. Frankly, he wasn’t sure entirely what they were, only that they were at the heart of this mess alongside him and that they clearly didn’t like him.

When they’d reached a segment of the bridge that wasn’t so lush with watching eyes, she undid his binds. He gingerly rubbed the red marks from where they’d bitten into his skin.

“Come, we haven’t much time,” and she watched him. It took Anders a moment to realize she didn’t trust him behind her. He sighed and walked on. He was dangerous enough without a staff (especially with Justice’s power) but if he was gonna be leading their two person vanguard, he certainly preferred to have one.

One unexpected tumble off the bridge and onto a couple of demons later and his prayers were answered by an upturned cart that had fallen with them. The staff in question was little more than a crude pole but it would have to do.

Cassandra charged off immediately across the ice of the frozen lake bed they’d landed on. Anders momentarily admired her as she tore viciously into the demon ahead. Her form was power and grace, no move extraneous. It was a real shame she’d probably rather see him and those like him locked up forever than free.

He wanted to like her.

His own enemy was fast approaching, though, and he had little time to think about anything but survival. All those years fighting darkspawn and all manner of creature in and out of Kirkwall had left him an experienced mage and he dispatched it quickly enough, a combination of frost and lightning. It fell with a dull thud and crumbled into wisps of light that faded away quickly.

“I think that’s all of them,” he observed, making his way back to Cassandra. She levied her sword at him and glared.

“Give me that, _now._ ” It wasn’t a tone you argued with.

Anders smirked, his mind running over all the things he actually needed the staff to do as a mage. The list wasn’t long. The list of magic-related things he could do using only his _feet_ was far longer. “Fine, have it your way.” He offered it to her.

She stared at him for a moment before sighing, defeated. “Keep it. I don’t know that I can protect you against everything we’re about to face.” She sheathed her weapon and looked toward the summit. “Come, we must go.”

He wanted to thank her but he feared bringing it up would make her angry. _You shouldn’t need to thank someone for not subjugating you anyway,_ a voice nagged. He pushed it down.

This time she took off ahead of him, something he commented on against his better judgement.

“It’s only natural that I go in first, that’s what warriors do.” She drew her sword as a pair of demons that had been gnawing on a half frozen corpse looked up, hungry eyed and feral. She called behind her as she ran toward them, “But don’t think for even a moment—” She struck one down, its screech lingering in the air as its body faded around her blade. “—That this means I trust you.”

He fireballed the second demon as it got within chewing range of her and she swung her sword in a wide arc, slicing what would have been its face if demons could reliably be said to have them. It fell with its own otherworldly cry and the two of them relaxed.

“Noted,” Anders said mildly, hopping off the hillside to check the corpse. No identifying documents. Maybe the scouts would know who he was. “Sorry. I hope you went quick,” he muttered. The corpse didn’t answer, its eyes staring endlessly into the sky. At least it had no worries anymore.

Anders stood and turned his eyes back to the pulsing green chasm overhead. His own worry.

Cassandra urged him along but she’d stared at him oddly when he spoke to the body and hadn’t commented.

They fought their way through a small gathering of demons and up a hill.

“Not much further now. You can hear the fighting.” Cassandra was running now and Anders had to work to keep up.

“Who’s fighting?” He was breathless. Maker, he needed to run more often.

She didn’t answer and when they crested the hill they were thrown yet again into battle alongside a bald elf and _Varric Tethras_ of all people. Of all dwarves.

“Blondie, I thought you’d never wake up.” Anders didn’t have time to respond to the voice that sounded if anything a little disappointed that he was there.

When all the demons had fallen, the elf grabbed his marked hand and thrust it toward the shining portal in front of them. A rift, they called it, which seemed appropriate. A rift between this world and the Fade that belched demons.

“Well, that’s a neat trick,” Anders said once it had sealed. He stared at his hand. The glow had dimmed some and there wasn’t such an urgent tingling anymore. He wouldn’t exactly say it felt good but it certainly wasn’t as distracting.

“Yes, quite,” the elf replied, amused. “Glad to see you’re among the living.” He smiled and it was oddly charming. He had too little hair for Anders to really stare but he didn’t have a bad face.

 _Now isn’t the time to get distracted._ Right, focus.

He rounded on his dwarven friend. “Varric. Good to see you.” It came out more awkward than he’d intended but based on Varric’s stories about Hawke (ones which spared few details of his time with his old friend) he’d _always_ been a bit awkward in Varric’s eyes.

“I’m just a sight for sore eyes. Isn’t that right, Bianca?” He carefully strapped his crossbow back into place and smiled up at Anders.

He looked tired, less pleased than he sounded, and about as done with this shit as anyone could be done with anything.

“I’m…” The words died in his throat. He was glad to see Varric. Nervous. Disappointed with himself for being nervous. He wouldn’t exactly call them friends anymore but it had been a couple years since the last time he saw a truly friendly face. “I mean it,” he settled on. “It really is good to see you.”

Varric’s voice didn’t exactly crack but there was _something_ there, something just a little different. “I know, Blondie. I know.”

“We need to move on,” Cassandra interjected. She was right. They moved down the hillside and up into the mountains, fighting across several groups of demons on their way. Cassandra expressed worry for Leliana and it almost made Anders laugh.

“She’s resourceful, Seeker.”

“By that, he means ‘the most dangerous thing on this mountainside’,” Anders added cheerfully. Both Varric and Cassandra looked at him.

He realized that neither of them knew of his connection with her. He didn’t actually feel like explaining even if the time had been right for it, so he finished with a quiet, “I mean, I assume.”

It didn’t take long for them to rejoin her. The silence continued, a fact that didn’t surprise Anders. She was awfully secretive these days and he got the feeling that not telling the others was more a benefit to her than if he had. He’d have to pull at that string later and find out what had changed with her.

It was decided that they’d travel with the soldiers instead of through a mountain pass where scouts had gone missing, mostly because he didn’t want to hear Cassandra’s disapproval of his plans otherwise. He reasoned that he couldn’t actually help the missing scouts if they were just frozen corpses already. Besides, if he didn’t go now, he wasn’t sure the mark would stay docile.

It was beginning to ache again.

“You!” It was the voice of one shocked, disgusted Commander Cullen. _This day keeps getting better._

Last he’d seen the man, they were working together to execute his Knight Commander for being a bloodthirsty, mage-murdering tyrant who’d been corrupted by red lyrium. He actually hadn’t known what became of Cullen after that. He supposed this was his answer.

Seeing the man made him think briefly of Hawke, but he couldn’t face those thoughts yet or he’d fall into them and drown.

“Me,” Anders said, grinning mirthlessly. He just wanted it to end. The conversation, the breach and its demons, the constant sense that he had to be moving forward or he’d be lost.

Cullen looked ready to start shouting but Cassandra interrupted. “Is the way ahead clear, Commander?”

His eyes snapped from Anders to Cassandra and back several times before he gave up. Through gritted teeth, he replied, “Yes, Seeker. My soldiers will hold off anything coming from the rear. Make your way through.”

She nodded and moved. Anders wished he could be that decisive right now.

More than anything, he wished people would listen when he _was._

Ultimately, his day culminated with them fighting an absolute mountain of a demon that had come out of a large rift right below the breach. More than once he was certain one of those enormous fists would be the end of him and more than once an arrow from Leliana or a taunt from Cassandra was what stopped it from actually landing.

He used the mark on his hand to interrupt the flow of magic from the rift several times but it took ages before the demon itself was weak enough for him to destroy the connection altogether.

And then he woke up.

He woke up to a young elven girl dropping to the floor and apologizing profusely for waking him. For even being in his presence, it seemed.

 _That’s new._ Normally everyone who actually knew who he was wished he’d do the apologizing.

He was directed to go to the Chantry “at once” and then she was gone.

And Anders was alone in this warm, quiet cabin. No chains, no hard eyed stares. Just quiet and a crackling fire and a feeling of relative peace.

Over the next several months, he’d field all sorts of things from people calling him a heretic or an abomination to people literally dropping to their knees in front of him to worship. At the weirdest of times, he thought back to that little cabin and the quiet, calm fire. It helped him stay grounded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to read examples of my writing where I actually did have time to edit, feel free to check out my other fics outside this series. Thanks!


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